It sounds like making a custom post type called “Products” would be the best way for you to manage the products.
Unless you want a special name for the taxonomy, you could just make your custom post type use the default “Category” taxonomy for organizing your products.
The simplest way to add data like article code, color, etc to your products is to just use “custom fields”. This is something else you have to tell your custom post type to support, like the category taxonomy.
It didn’t sound like you were asking for it, but if you want a more technical “How to” answer, let me know in a comment below.